Magic Leap to Launch AR Shooter ‘Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders’ Next Week

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Magic Leap’s first annual L.E.A.P. Con dev conference is set to open its doors next week, and while we expected to hear a lot about Weta Workshop’s upcoming AR shooter Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders there, Magic Leap today announced that the game will be heading to Magic Leap One headsets on October 9th.

Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders has long been held as the Magic Leap One’s premier IP, as the company has worked with Weta Workshop on the game since well before the New Zealand-based conceptual design & effects studio created the iconic robot-shooting concept video first seen back in 2015.

No demos have been made available to the public, so at this point it’s hard to say exactly Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders is all about. What we do know is this: it’s an AR shooter that pits you against steampunk-style robots, of which at least two characters are voiced by Stephen Fry and Rhys Darby.

It could have a multiplayer component too, as evidenced by a recent Magic Leap job posting and an image showing several players wearing Magic Leap One headsets, but with little else to go on it’s simply too early to say.

With how poorly the Magic Leap has been received by many (including myself) I am curious to see how gaming on this device will be implemented.

Malkmus

What were your main problems with it? The devs I’ve been talking to are genuinely excited to be working with it.

David Herrington

I have never used it so I can’t speak out of experience. I was talking about the poor reviews and hype that fell flat after the premiere. I am still interested in what it has to offer but I don’t believe the price point is in the range that will let it take off.
You say the devs are excited to work with it. That’s fine. I know a lot of people who would be excited to test drive a Ferrari, but I don’t know many people who own one.

Malkmus

Thanks Dave, I thought you had tried it because of the line that it was poorly received “including myself”. Either way, doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to make some point about the Magic Leap One “taking off” in sales. It is primarily a dev kit, and yes an expensive one. However, these things come down in cost eventually. When I got a DK2 I bought a PC a friend helped me build for $1700 in 2015 (i7 processor, GTX 980 graphics card). Roughly a year later the consumer Rift launched and I bought it for $600. Then came Touch for another $200. Then room scale and I bought two more sensors for another $120. You can see how early days in VR were comparable to this.
The broader point I’m trying to make is that if you look outside the negative Palmer review, and the mixed reviews from the press you’ll find that the AR/VR community is much less jaded and actually enjoying the device (look even at the Tested review, for example). Right now Magic Leap is two months out from launch and already announcing a bunch of compelling titles (more to come this week) and that’s just for a dev kit. Their main goal is to get devs in right now, and I think the more cynical-minded people will be surprised at the longevity of this device. For the longest time the consensus was it’s vaporware and or a scam. That was wrong and I believe the idea that it will fade away into obscurity is wrong too. I think people forget how hard Oculus had it in the early days. I had many similar discussions with people similar to this back then as well.

While it does take a ~$1000+ PC to run current PC VR, The actual premium VR device was around $600-$800 at launch. This initial cost was prohibitively expensive for many, but at least in the end you still owned a very nice PC which could be used for many other things.

For Magic Leap, the initial cost is similar to a PC+VR build but you don’t get the added benefit of recouping some of that cost as a high end PC.

What this means practically is that if the burgeoning VR market never takes off, I still have use of a high end PC. On the other hand, if Magic Leap never takes off, all that money is forfeit. This makes the Magic Leap a VERY high risk investment for devs and consumers alike. Being a high risk investment means that not many people will invest in Magic Leap. Having a very small userbase will kill the Magic Leap faster than almost anything else.

PlayStation VR is the best selling high end VR system because of 3 reasons. It does a decent job of sitting VR, it is dirt cheap, and already has a platform with an incredibly large userbase.
If you outprice your market you will never go anywhere.

Malkmus

Oh of course it’s risky, as it is for Hololens devs. But that’s also why ML is aggressively pursuing dev outreach now, and making partnerships with wireless distributors like ATT to get in stores, get it in the public mind, and lower the cost. But what stands out to me is that we’ve now taken the conversation about Magic Leap from “it’s vaporware” or “it’s a disaster” to “well, it’s expensive”. The conversation will continue to evolve, and I don’t think it’s as dire as many thought it would be.

David Herrington

Vaporware, as in it will never be a real product? No I don’t think that will be the case. But vaporware as in only 0.1% of the population will ever own one? That’s a lot more likely.

Malkmus

It already is a real product, and therefore not “vaporware” by definition. Listen, I’m by no means predicting whether Magic Leap will be a huge hit or not. But a lot of the conversation around their failure reminds me so much of the first couple years of owning a DK2, Rift and Vive. Lots of mudslinging, lots of doomsday proclamations, and a lot of misunderstandings. Magic Leap could fail, or they could succeed. It’s too early to tell. But they’ve already accomplished the opposite of what many people thought was going to happen.

David Herrington

What’s the difference between 0% of the population owning Magic Leap and 0.1% owning Magic Leap? Effectively it would still be vaporware.

You say it is just as risky as HoloLens as if HoloLens has been a huge success. I would love to see Magic Leap be everything they ever promised if not for just the sake of the industry, but the reality is that the Magic Leap appears to be a HoloLens 1.5. You say that they have already accomplished the opposite of what people thought was going to happen. Maybe you are talking about the people who said that the Magic Leap was never a real device, then yes, you would be right. But the main problem isn’t it being a real device, it is being a device that I would be delighted to purchase whatever the cost, and they have failed at that so far.

Malkmus

I think we should revisit this conversation when it’s a consumer device, as that’s where most of your perspective seems to come from. Right now they just need to impress and attract devs. As far as your definition of vaporware, that same logic could apply to the first Oculus dev kit two months after release. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say, and it would have been silly to project how big Oculus would be that short after the release of the DK1. Remember all the “VR makes you sick”, “It’s like 3D TV all over again” arguments that had the masses predicting VR’s demise right out the gate? Give it some time :)

David Herrington

Yes, let’s recall what happened to DK1. They said that DK1 was just a dev kit and that CV1 would be just as cheap or the same cost and what happened. The CV1 was even MORE expensive at release. I’m sorry but if this version of Magic Leap is just a dev kit, then how much more do you think the consumer version will be?

If this version is just for dev’s then how is a dev supposed to appraise the consumer userbase of the Magic Leap when the dev kit is so expensive? If the consumer version will be less than half the cost then that would greatly influence my interest as a dev, but there has been no indication that this will happen. So I am only left with the assumption that the Magic Leap 1.0 cost will be the same as whatever consumer version they release. When the cost is the same as a PC+VR setup then my time as a dev will be better used for other things with more market penetration.

Malkmus

They’ve already stated the consumer version will be less expensive. It’s not binary to Oculus because the Kickstarter vs private company nature of the two. Anyway, you’ve firmly made your point that you think ML will never attract devs and therefore has no chance at success, so all we can do is wait and see. In my opinion, if they play their cards right it could succeed. Never say never :)

jj

As a dev in the industry, who talks a lot with other devs in the industry, its clear this is a flop, mostly due to the promise of new and better tech, but in the end its no better than a hololense. All of us have tried, and most of us own, a hololense, and this is no improvement to that. We’ve have one here at the office and have no intentions of developing for something so overrun with false claims and misguided information.

Malkmus

It’s hard to debate anecdotal evidence like that. I too speak to a lot of devs in the industry and will be at their dev conference tomorrow speaking to many more. Also, saying it’s “no improvement” over Hololens is factually incorrect. Even if you don’t personally care for it, the larger FOV, lighter weight, better processors, and addition of a 6DOF controller all make it objectively better in terms of specs.

jj

Those are all good and dandi, who doesn’t want a larger FOV, lighter weight, better processor, and 6DOF? But when a company promises so much more and uses shady marketing techniques, people take notice. They needed everyone to buy into this device just to manage, especially since they started running out of funds and had their investors forced them to release it, and with how many people the offended with false promises, they’re never going to last.
Not only false promises, but they treated the entire industry as if we were idiots, when they released footage for this game as a concept video and originally didn’t tell anybody it was a concept until devs called out the illegitimacy of the claims they were making.
They just a scam company trying to make money off of developers. That’s just my opinion and I’ll patiently stand by it until their ship sinks. :) I’d have a LOT more sympathy for them if they hadn’t been so shady throughout the entire process. A lot of people, including me, feel the uncertainty around this product and we may be wrong, but i’d rather trust my gut around shady businesses and not invest.

When promoting a new product the slogan, “never say never” is a poor way to describe how your company is doing. I feel like you may be invested in this company personally and so may not be able to make judgements objectively. Be careful my friend. Hopefully all your investments into Magic Leap are emotional and not financial.
That being said, I feel like the only way to prove my point is to follow your suggestion. I will wait and see.

Malkmus

Heard all this back when I defended Oculus too. Calling people fanboys or shills are rarely productive. Sorry you felt the need to take the conversation there.

David Herrington

I never called you a shill or fanboy. I was saying I believed you to be invested in this financially. As in you have purchased stock in Magic Leap. I have not heard you refute this point so I can only assume that this is the case. But I was just cautioning you to be careful with such a risky investment and hoped that you would not lose money in this if it did fail, but instead hoped that you were just invested emotionally in Magic Leap.

Malkmus

Yes, I know what you meant and it was a wrong assumption. I likened it to shilling and calling me a fanboy, because it had nothing to do with the actual discussion at hand. Saying I must be financially invested because I simply see potential in a device that you don’t is ridiculous. It’s not like I ever said anything about Magic Leap being destined to take over, or be better than VR, or anything unusual. So there is nothing to caution me about. Please lay off the personal assumptions.

jj

100% agree no point in developing for a platform without a user base, and this product will never have a userbase. By the time a commercial edition comes out, hololense 2 will be out, of which i’ve been lucky enough to work with, and has some crazy new tech that will blow the ML out of the water, purely in render capabilities alone.

HAIL SATAN! Jesus was alright, but he was lazy and just walked around… no satan, he on the other hand did some stuff.

JesuSaveSouls

Go get a mirage ar jedi challenges for pocket change and get a premiere premium experience.

Adrian Meredith

This has to be great or the bubble bursts. If that happens investment in AR and VR will do and the dream ends

Graham

I’m not sure magic leap is that significant? Even if it fails, I can’t see that meaning the end of VR. Might slow AR of course.

jj

lol did you start paying attention solely because of the ML? Thats a fail.
AR and VR won’t be effected by this, because luckily they did shitty enough early on for the industry, to get a good heads up this was going to be lame. Its only the outsiders who are just now noticing ar/vr that are getting misinformed.

David Herrington

I think that the failure of Magic Leap will be a large blow to the AR/VR community. But in the end it will foster a more realistic outlook for the whole sector and will promote more healthy and realistic investments into other companies that are showing actual progress, instead of get rich quick investors like those pushing Magic Leap.

LowRezSkyline

When I read about a big title that has this kind of ‘creative’ group behind it I always roll my eyes. Just checking boxes for their marketing group… big well known film studio connection – check… voices provided by famous actors that have no clue about tech or gaming – check… splashy movie-poster-esq cover art – check.